It was the discovery of a lifetime. Helena Iles Papaioannou, a researcher with the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project, was meticulously combing through 1865 correspondence of the U.S. Surgeon General when she came upon the long-lost report of Charles Leale, the doctor who treated the president on the night he was shot.

While Dr. Leale’s later testimony at a congressional hearing was known to historians, his original 21-page clinical report written the day after the assassination was missing. Read more »